Ballroom and Latin Dancing- 10 months on

Since Christmas, we have been in the improvers class and WOW. The difference. Some people in that class have been there 2 years! They dance and you just want to stop and watch them move. Four of us progressed on from the beginner class to the improvers class this semester, but we really are quite far behind in comparison. In many of the dances we have a lot of catching up to do. This semester we learned rumba, which I love, and it’s quite different from everything else we have done so far. The pace of the improvers class is much faster, and I feel like we’ve learned so much since Christmas. My usual dance partner wasn't there one day, so for the first time since I started, I was actually dancing with a man, as a woman! While in theory this sounded good, he kept complaining about my trying to lead...

No, this is not me, but this is a snap from our class!

We added new steps to our quickstep - the lock-step and pivot turn - which we still don’t have quite right so it looks a bit clunky. The cha cha is still probably one of my favourites because it's so up-beat. We got to add a new step called the cross-basic in the cha cha, which is taking a while to get the hang of. Since Christmas we have also spent much more time on swing dancing, and added a new step called the American Spin which is good fun but it makes you so dizzy after a while! It’s one of the only dances where I do the woman’s part, so a few times I got to dance with the teacher, and she's so amazing it's kind of scary to be her dance partner. We added in a "conversation piece" to the Foxtrot as well, so it's nice to have something new in there. When I switched to Monday classes one night, some other people in the class thought I had been doing dance for ages, which was a nice compliment to get.

Towards the end we had a very quick introduction to samba, which I would really like to learn more of because I love the music for it. We also did a "Yearning Saunter" which I think definitely wins the award for the poshest dance title! It is a strange sequence dance that feels as though it belongs in an Austen film adaptation. (I realise that all makes it sound interesting but really it’s more of a yawning saunter).

Before starting dance this year, I had never really grasped how much you have to use your brain for it. And a different part of the brain than usual, at that. But it really is the case that as soon as you start over-thinking the dance steps, you suddenly can't do it anymore. I imagine come September we will have forgotten a lot of what we have learned. The four of us who progressed from the beginner to the improvers class since Christmas are all planning to go back in September, which will be lovely. And I must say I am actually glad now that I learned the man's part, because otherwise it is very easy to allow yourself to be led, and never really learn the steps independently, but learning both parts means I am able to teach other people how to do the same dances.


PS: I have yet again- obviously- failed to take any pictures to actually show I do any of this (sorry). For the end of the Gaisce challenge, I do need to hand in a portfolio with pictures/videos of my various activities, so if anyone wants to volunteer to learn all of these dances and pose for pictures, let me know :P 

Volunteering in a Charity Shop- 10 months on

Since Christmas, I have got to know how the Irish Cancer Society shop works in much greater detail. For every donation we get, we have to figure out whether or not the item is ok to sell, and if so, we have to judge the quality (or brand) and put a price on it, something I am much more experienced at now. I’ve also come to realise how many businesses are involved with, and make donations to the Irish Cancer Society, like Tesco for example. When people rip one pair of socks/tights/underpants etc, out of a pack of three, Tesco can no longer sell them, and the item they have taken obviously isn't individually security tagged, so they just steal it. On the plus side, it's great for us, because all the clothes are brand new!

Inside the shop

I have met so many new volunteers over the last few months. We get a lot of student and international volunteers, some doing work experience, some trying to better their English. Some of our volunteers are doing internship placements with us, and for many it is their first time to work. Everyone has a different story, and it is really interesting that every few weeks, there is a new fellow volunteer to meet. 

Every so often I update the shop’s Facebook page with some interesting-looking item in store, and there has been more engagement with the page lately, but it is hard to keep it up to date as I am only in there once a week. The manager is very grateful for the page, though, and also asked me to design summer-themed posters and leaflets for an event in the shop. I sent my design into Reads in Stillorgan and they hand-delivered the finished product, much to the manager’s delight, and the event went really well.

In many ways, a charity shop is a difficult place to work. If we don’t get donations, there’s nothing to sell, so there are no customers. When a customer really wants something, they will often try to haggle over the price, even though all the funds are going to charity. Security is difficult because there is no way to identify an item donated to our shop once the tag has been removed, so for some, this becomes an opportune place to steal. But, although it is undoubtedly more challenging than my other two Gaisce activities, over the last few months, it has become increasingly significant to me on a personal level.

My grandfather passed away due to prostate cancer in May, and my grandmother and mother couldn't thank the cancer nurses and carers enough for all they did when treatment was no longer feasible. Although this was funded by the St David's cancer research group in Wales, I know the Irish Cancer Society provide the same resources due to the funding from their shops and regular fundraiser events. Given how much help my own family received from a similar organisation, I am really glad to have chosen the Irish Cancer Society as the charity to volunteer with. A lot of people just come in looking for a bargain, or the volunteers are just looking for work experience, but there are a good few there because they- both customers and volunteers- care about the cause. The work is not always easy, but I am glad to have given my time to this charity.

Yoga...10 months on

After getting a yoga mat for Christmas, I had great intentions of doing yoga each night before bed, but as with most New Year’s Resolutions, that never really came to pass, but I still have made some progress over the last few months. In January I got a bit of a surprise to find one of my lecturers from my master’s course was in my class too!

One of the most interesting things about yoga is the diverse ages, abilities, and flexibilities of the people in the class. No two bodies have the same level of flexibility, and even something as simple as having a cold can dramatically change your ability to hold a pose. At the beginning of each class, the instructor checks to see if anyone has any injuries, and it’s rare someone in the class doesn’t. One class in particular had loads of new people there, somewhere in the range of 40-60 years old, and they were all trying to "one-up" each other on how long it had been since they'd done exercise, and how stiff they felt. This of course gave me the impression that they were going to find the class difficult. How wrong I was. The more they spoke, the more I realised they were all yoga fanatics, and they very comfortably (but also competitively) were doing splits and all sorts of mad poses no problem, while I looked more like an awkward baby elephant.

Not every class leaves you feeling relaxed, or at peace- sometimes it’s simply exhausting. So much so that one student stormed out of one class saying “I’m too old for that sort of thing!”. And although I enjoy the “focusing on your breathing” aspect of yoga, some classes where we start off "stimulating the third eye" leave me a bit bewildered. But in general, I'm really glad I started yoga, and I think it really is helping to minimise my stress levels. It isn't until I'm in the class that I realise how tense I've been holding myself, even down to my facial muscles. During the warmer weather, we did yoga outside on the balcony, over-looking the sea, which was really nice.

Overall, I have to admit that every time I go to yoga class, I can never be sure how it’ll go. Sometimes doing the simplest of poses can trigger lots of cracks and creaks in my joints that really don’t sound good, and other times, I feel like yoga is exactly what my body needed to do. I am seeing a gradual improvement, and it is certainly something I will keep up when I have finished the Gaisce challenge.